Author: earthfirst

Oxford community-run bar under threat from local cops

East Oxford Com­mu­ni­ty Social Club is a social club run for and by its mem­bers, based in a local com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre for which it rais­es mon­ey. It’s unique not just for the way it’s run but also because of its diverse, inclu­sive and friend­ly atmos­phere, cheap prices and avail­abil­i­ty as a com­mu­ni­ty venue.

A per­son­al account and call to action. Cor­rec­tions and com­ments wel­come!

THE BACKGROUND

East Oxford Com­mu­ni­ty Social Club is a social club run for and by its mem­bers, based in a local com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre for which it rais­es mon­ey. It’s unique not just for the way it’s run but also because of its diverse, inclu­sive and friend­ly atmos­phere, cheap prices and avail­abil­i­ty as a com­mu­ni­ty venue.

A per­son­al account and call to action. Cor­rec­tions and com­ments wel­come!

THE BACKGROUND

In Feb­ru­ary 2007, secret col­lu­sion between com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre bureacrats and unelect­ed coun­cil offi­cers came to light dra­mat­i­cal­ly when it emerged that the Coun­cil were plan­ning to shut the club down — at the request of the Com­mu­ni­ty Asso­ci­a­tion (which runs the cen­tre)! Rather than talk to the Social Club com­mit­tee about the prob­lems they had with the club, they went behind every­one’s back to try and seal the fate of the club before sup­port could be mobilised. They failed. A flur­ry of last minute activ­i­ty — packed emer­gency meet­ings, let­ter writ­ing cam­paigns to coun­cil­lors, peti­tions etc — bought the club time to sort its act out and a last chance to stay open.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/2007/02/363768.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/2007/02/363408.html

With the threat of clo­sure, the author­i­ties clear­ly had the club over a bar­rel and pro­ceed­ed to issue all man­ner of demands — every­thing from hand­ing over finan­cial con­trol to installing CCTV on the build­ing. The club gave in to almost every request and many a com­pro­mise was made.

A new com­mit­tee took over, and through a huge amount of patience and hard work pro­ceed­ed to rebuild the club; it became safer, more organ­ised, was redec­o­rat­ed and grad­u­al­ly began pay­ing off its debts.

THE CRISIS

Fast for­ward to the present day and changes in the atti­tude of the police may final­ly fin­ish the club off for good, tram­pling all the work done over the years by count­less vol­un­teers. See, the club has also his­tor­i­cal­ly been a place where (shock! hor­ror!) cannabis was smoked. The police had always turned a blind eye to this aspect of the club’s cul­ture and there was an unof­fi­cial under­stand­ing that it was con­ve­nient for them to con­tin­ue doing so. In any case the Feb­ru­ary cri­sis and the smok­ing ban ensured that peo­ple stopped skin­ning up in the bar, though of course those that want to can always smoke out­side in the street.

A few months ago the pol­i­cy changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly; snif­fer dogs patrolled bars and pubs all along Cow­ley Rd, and the club was raid­ed repeat­ed­ly, with some arrests tak­ing place. The police want­ed to be seen as ‘tough’ on drugs and were will­ing to bul­ly their way to that rep­u­ta­tion.

Now they have threat­ened that unless the Social Club turn its alco­hol licence over to a sin­gle named indi­vid­ual (whom they can then per­se­cute indi­vid­u­al­ly as they choose) thus ceas­ing to be a mem­bers-run club, they will use their influ­ence to ensure the entire com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre has its licence revoked.

The Com­mu­ni­ty Asso­ci­a­tion, led by Sarah Lasen­by (who it seems has always want­ed a more sani­tised, mid­dle-class-friend­ly bar) went along with this, and despite attempts at com­pro­mise and dia­logue by the social club, gave us 28 days notice to leave. To be fair to the Com­mu­ni­ty Asso­ci­a­tion, they can rea­son­ably claim to have been giv­en lit­tle choice by the cops, at least if they want to hold onto the licence in some form or anoth­er — and it’s clear the cen­tre would col­lapse with­out the abil­i­ty to hold events.

But they *could* have done things dif­fer­ent­ly. They could have worked with the club to try and find a solu­tion instead of reject­ing their attempts. They could have kicked up a fuss when first threat­ened by the cops, con­tact­ing local coun­cil­lors, news­pa­pers, and com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre users to point out what was hap­pen­ing. In the ensu­ing con­tro­ver­sy, the cops might have been forced to back down. The way to stop a bul­ly is to stand up to them and to shout loud­ly for oth­ers to help you, not to give in and hope they will go away. Soon­er or lat­er the same forces may come after the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre as a whole, and they need to be con­front­ed soon­er rather than lat­er.

But after Feb­ru­ary 2007 we are used to such breach­es of sol­i­dar­i­ty from the Asso­ci­a­tion, and we have to be clear that the main cul­prits are the cops.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

1) Come to the club’s AGM this Sat­ur­day (29th) at 6pm in the bar (East Oxford Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Cow­ley Rd). Doors close at 6.30, and every­one gets a free drink at the end about 7.45pm. We need every­one’s ener­gy and ideas to talk about what we can do.

2) Con­tact your local coun­cil­lors to let them know if in your opin­ion the Club is a safe and friend­ly place; whether it improved dur­ing 2007; and whether it would be bet­ter off run by the EOCSC com­mit­tee or by a fran­chisee. Con­tact details are here:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/oxford-activism/2008–03/msg00014.html

You might want to ask them to get the police to clamp down on the big pow­er­ful venues that are the real source of Cow­ley Rd’s late night prob­lems instead of bul­ly­ing small com­mu­ni­ty out­fits.

3) Watch out for news of a spe­cial emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ty Asso­ci­a­tion meet­ing to hold those respon­si­ble account­able for their recent actions and try and reverse the deci­sion.

4) You could also con­tact the social club: 01865 640059 enquiries@eocsc.co.uk to offer your prac­ti­cal sup­port and join if you aren’t already a mem­ber.

5) Con­tact Sarah Lasen­by to ask her to over­turn the deci­sion to kick out the social club, and to work with the social club to try and keep the club open:

sarahlasenby@breathemail.net
01865 725991

Sarah Lasen­by
EOCA
Princes St
Oxford OX4 1HU

THE FUTURE

Ulti­mate­ly we can only secure the long-term future of the social club and spaces like it by re-assert­ing com­mu­ni­ty con­trol over East Oxford itself. It’s *our* club, it’s *our* com­mu­ni­ty and those are *our* streets. We should keep remind­ing our­selves of that! It’s all part of a wider strug­gle against cap­i­tal­ist gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of our spaces and cul­ture, and they have to be fought every step of the way.

********
Anoth­er account of recent events that has cir­cu­lat­ed:

So as far as I under­stand,

Despite ful­fill­ing ALL the cri­te­ria out­lined in an ACTION PLAN last year by THE POLICE and THE COUNCIL.…

at the TIME, ENERGY AND PERSONAL EXPENSE of the Social Club Com­mi­teee mem­ber­ship and sup­port­ers who are all local VOTERS which includ­ed com­plete­ly redec­o­rat­ing the whole space, bar and cel­lar and man­ag­ing to clear all the debts left by the com­mit­tee from years ago in ONE YEAR !.….

and DESPITE the fact that the Social Club is now run­ning the BEST it has EVER been run.….

and DESPITE fact that there is a FULLY FUNCTIONING MEMBERSHIP WHICH many HUNDREDS OF LOCAL VOTERS Have sub­scribed to for 08/09.….

THE POLICE sim­ply do not want this UNIQUE INDISPENSIBLE COMMUNITY RESOURCE which is run BY THE COMMUNITY FOR THE COMMUNITY to stay open.….

And that they have SUGGESTED to the Asso­ci­a­tion (whic runs the build­ing) the unless they abol­ish the social club, the POLICE will SUGGEST that the LICENCE for the ASSOCIATION will NOT be renewed either.……

AND as event s are the bread and but­ter life and soul of a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre (By the Peo­ple for the Peo­ple) the Ass­so­cial­tion will go bust and the build­ing will become anoth­er great white ele­phant like like so many oth­ers run by a Coun­cil appoint­ed (ie unelect­ed) manger (prob­a­bly Sajid Malik from the Asian Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre) who will decide what is allowed to take place in the build­ing from which the Coun­cil will recoup ALL the income.…

(in this love­ly reju­ve­nat­ed build­ing redec­o­rat­ed by unpaid labour…)

OR they will sim­ply sell it off for more stu­dent hous­ing aor anoth­er STARBUCKS as the prop­er­ty alone is worth mil­lions — which means the end of FUSION and RAP and OX POTS THe OXFORD BEFRIENDING NETWORK and the CLAIMANTS UNION — and afford­able use of the space by the local com­mu­ni­ty.

New collective aims to help grassroots events

We are post­ing this to let peo­ple know about a new col­lec­tive designed to help grass­roots groups through net­work­ing equip­ment and exper­tise when it comes to putting on cam­paign events. But first they need to know what you have to offer…

We are post­ing this to let peo­ple know about a new col­lec­tive designed to help grass­roots groups through net­work­ing equip­ment and exper­tise when it comes to putting on cam­paign events. But first they need to know what you have to offer…

Do you have a pile of use­ful equip­ment that you hard­ly use, clut­ter­ing up your space? Do have or know of a large stor­age space being under­used? Do you main­tain large vehi­cles that nev­er quite earn their keep?

If you answer yes to these and would like to see them ben­e­fit oth­er good caus­es, then the AT Col­lec­tive are inter­est­ed in hear­ing from you. They are cur­rent­ly com­pil­ing a list of equip­ment, skills and spaces that peo­ple have and wish to see used for the ben­e­fit of oth­er groups engaged in rad­i­cal social change.

If you do have any equip­ment, skills or stor­age on offer then please fill in their sur­vey at http://tinyurl.com/3bl8ny

You can also con­tact them direct­ly. For more back­ground info, please see below.

AT Col­lec­tive
Email: atcoop@atcoop.org.uk
Web: www.atcoop.org.uk
Tel: 0845 217 8997

————->

AT Coop­er­a­tive: An Overview

From camps to urban con­ver­gences and squats, we want to help cam­paigns groups access the skills and mate­ri­als they need to be effec­tive and sus­tain­able. This helps reduce work load of cam­paign­ers putting on grass­roots events and effec­tive­ly dis­trib­utes equip­ment and knowl­edge through­out our net­works.

How­ev­er, we will be more than that — by work­ing with AT Coop we will ensure that your equip­ment is not just used for good caus­es but is prop­er­ly main­tained and stored as well. We want to take the risk and wor­ry out of lend­ing your equip­ment by being tru­ly pro­fes­sion­al about it. Though coop­er­a­tion every­one ben­e­fits, and as AT Coop grows we can pro­vide more and more at ever cheap­er rates.

The AT Coop is a new, not-for-prof­it col­lec­tive, formed to acquire, store, main­tain and mon­i­tor mate­ri­als like solar pan­els, wind tur­bines, vehi­cles, tools, mar­quees, field kitchens and oth­er equip­ment. It also aims to pro­vide prac­ti­cal sup­port to grass­roots cam­paign groups by shar­ing the knowl­edge and skills of those who have them already. For exam­ple, build­ing grey water sys­tems or com­post toi­lets, plumb­ing, pow­er gen­er­a­tion, site man­age­ment, trans­port logis­tics, and so on. Cur­rent­ly we are com­pil­ing a data­base of equip­ment, skills and spaces which can be made avail­able to oth­er social change move­ments.

Our aim is to reduce reliance on expen­sive com­mer­cial busi­ness­es, and encour­age groups to sup­port each oth­er by shar­ing their resources. We will focus on recy­cling and reusing equip­ment wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. Aside from our data­base of skills and equip­ment (and what we are plan­ning to pro­vide our­selves) we are work­ing on a how-to guide for putting on events, devel­op­ing skills and main­tain­ing equip­ment. We can then enable groups to become more autonomous by pro­vid­ing train­ing and knowl­edge based what we learn. Longer term we plan to invest in our own vehi­cles and equip­ment.

The new­ly formed col­lec­tive works along the prin­ci­ples of non-hier­ar­chy and mutu­al aid. Our focus is to sup­port non-dis­crim­i­na­to­ry forms of cam­paign­ing on issues of social jus­tice, eco­log­i­cal defence, ani­mal rights, or any oth­er groups adher­ing to the PGA hall­marks. All of us are expe­ri­enced in putting on var­i­ous cam­paign events, both rur­al and urban.

If you are work­ing on a project or event which needs vol­un­teers, or might pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty for train­ing then please let us know. If you want to sup­port the ATC but don’t have skills or equip­ment, we are cur­rent­ly fundrais­ing to move into the next phase of our project…please get in touch!

To help you we need infor­ma­tion about what is avail­able! Please for­ward this onto con­tacts with­in your move­ment, post this text on your web­site, and get in touch for more infor­ma­tion.

AT Col­lec­tive
atcoop@atcoop.org.uk
http://www.atcoop.org.uk

17th April: International Day in Solidarity with Political Prisoners

Four years have gone by since the Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Polit­i­cal Pris­on­ers Con­fer­ence was held in Donos­tia, Basque Coun­try.

Four years have gone by since the Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Polit­i­cal Pris­on­ers Con­fer­ence was held in Donos­tia, Basque Coun­try.

Four years have gone by since the Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Polit­i­cal Pris­on­ers Con­fer­ence was held in Donos­tia. Over there, indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions com­mit­ted to the sol­i­dar­i­ty with polit­i­cal pris­on­ers who suf­fer retal­i­a­tion and against the repres­sion, assumed the task to ini­ti­ate mech­a­nisms to improve our com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the start­ing-up of com­mon ini­tia­tives of report­ing and strate­gies. For that pur­pose, the des­ig­na­tion of April 17 as Inter­na­tion­al Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Polit­i­cal Pris­on­ers was one of the mea­sures that were issued and that, to this day, main­tain all its sig­nif­i­cance and impor­tance.

Today we are con­fronting in var­i­ous places of our plan­et a per­sis­tence of gov­ern­ments of repres­sive mea­sures that lim­it more and more the rights and free­doms of the pop­u­la­tion, an exten­sion and jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of prac­tices such as tor­ture, iso­la­tion, and even the phys­i­cal elim­i­na­tion of the polit­i­cal dis­si­dent. It is very clear a seri­ous dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the liv­ing con­di­tions of peo­ple who suf­fer retal­i­a­tion in dif­fer­ent deten­tion and pen­i­ten­tiary arrange­ments. This has also caused the wealth of crim­i­nal­iza­tion each time more acute of the orga­ni­za­tions that work to report the repres­sion and show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the ones who suf­fer retal­i­a­tion.

This way, the liv­ing con­di­tions of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Turkey, the mea­sures of crim­i­nal­iza­tion of the protests per­formed by the Mapuch­es, the uti­liza­tion of war mech­a­nisms against third coun­tries con­duct­ed by the nar­co-gov­ern­ment of Colom­bia, the exten­sion of the “anti-ter­ror­ist” fight to the legit­i­mate polit­i­cal asso­ci­a­tion­ism and dis­si­dence in Cataluña, Madrid and Italy, the start­ing-up of rad­i­cal mea­sures con­fronting the basic inter­na­tion­al leg­is­la­tion and the respect to the sov­er­eign­ty of third coun­tries con­duct­ed by the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca and the cre­ation of new spaces out­side the law, like Guan­tanamo or the secret flights with detainees exempt of any rights, the start­ing-up of new deten­tion mea­sures and the length­en­ing of sen­tences sine die in Spain and France, the repres­sion con­tin­u­ing in Sahara or the mil­i­tary aggres­sion to the polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions and civ­il pop­u­la­tion in Pales­tine, the crim­i­nal­iza­tion of the ones who show sol­i­dar­i­ty with Basque peo­ple who suf­fer retal­i­a­tion in the Basque con­text…

Let’s make April 17 a day to give voice to these com­plaints and claims, to cre­ate a com­mon space for shared strat­e­gy, a retain­ing wall against these mea­sures that lim­it our rights and free­doms, a meet­ing place for the anti-repres­sive resis­tance. Again we are call­ing on you to work towards these objec­tives and to once more, find each oth­er, rais­ing the flag of sol­i­dar­i­ty with polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

They suf­fer the glob­al­ized repres­sion; let us glob­al­ize the will­ing­ness and the hope.

Inter­na­tion­al Ini­tia­tive for the Polit­i­cal Pris­on­ers KALERA
contact@kalera.org
www.kalera.org

Activists “Mung Bean” 4x4s

22 March 2008
Activists in Edin­burgh claim respon­si­bil­i­ty for ‘dis­arm­ing’ ten 4x4s over the last two months, stat­ing that they are fight­ing cli­mate change.

22 March 2008
Activists in Edin­burgh claim respon­si­bil­i­ty for ‘dis­arm­ing’ ten 4x4s over the last two months, stat­ing that they are fight­ing cli­mate change.
The sabo­teurs say they have tar­get­ed the 4x4s to raise aware­ness about these high­ly fuel inef­fi­cient vehi­cles and the dis­as­trous effects they have upon our cli­mate, and more gen­er­al­ly about the rela­tion­ship between wealth and cli­mate change.

They are using mung beans to deflate the tyres of 4x4s by unscrew­ing the dust cap that pro­tects the valve of the tire, plac­ing a mung bean in the cap, and replac­ing the cap, which depress­es the valve, deflat­ing the tyre. Activists then place a let­ter explain­ing their actions on the wind­screen.

The activists say that they plan to esca­late their dis­arm­ing of SUVs, say­ing “we hope these actions will increase in num­ber, from a slight annoy­ance into a real obsta­cle, putting an end to this pol­lut­ing vehi­cles pop­u­lar­i­ty”.

They say that they are inspired by the Swedish group, the Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle, who have appar­ent­ly pro­voked much anger from SUV own­ers.

Over a thou­sand 4x4s are report­ed to have been dis­armed in Swe­den, and three peo­ple have been caught by police.

See the web­site of the Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle for more infor­ma­tion on the Swedish group:
asfaltsdjungelnsindianer.wordpress.com/in-english/

RAMpart2 is dead — long live rampART1

Fol­low­ing the grant­i­ng of an Inter­im Pos­ses­sion Order on Thurs­day the 20th March, RAMpart2 was left emp­ty by squat­ters after a final par­ty…

squat logo 2Fol­low­ing the grant­i­ng of an Inter­im Pos­ses­sion Order on Thurs­day the 20th March, RAMpart2 was left emp­ty by squat­ters after a final par­ty…

The ram­pART has out­lived it’s back­up venue which was opened new years eve. The new build­ing host­ed just two par­ties, a hand­ful of meet­ings and a cli­mate camp direct action train­ing gath­er­ing. Mean­while, the ram­pART itself is still open four months after being served court papers for a repos­ses­sion hear­ing.

ARTIVIST SQUATTERS TAKE 20,000 SQ FT MERCEDES SHOWROOM IN FINCHLEY RD, LONDON. THEME OF EVENT IS CLIMATE4CHANGE

OPENING 5TH APRIL 6PM
HARINGEY ARTS, CIRCLE COMMUNITY, 142 PROJECT, 291 GALLERY, URBAN NOMADS, CLIMATE4CHANGE AND MANY MORE PRESENTS

CLIMATE4CHANGE

COME, CREATE, AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE

ENVIRONMENTAL INSTALLATIONS, CINEMA, ART, PERFORMANCE, WORLD MUSIC, CIRCUS, CABARET AND PEOPLE
12 HUGE BAYS OF CAR SHOWROOM WITH MASSIVE WINDOWS FACING THE ROAD
EXHIBITION RUNS UNTIL END OF APRIL

OPENING 5TH APRIL 6PM
HARINGEY ARTS, CIRCLE COMMUNITY, 142 PROJECT, 291 GALLERY, URBAN NOMADS, CLIMATE4CHANGE AND MANY MORE PRESENTS

CLIMATE4CHANGE

COME, CREATE, AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE

ENVIRONMENTAL INSTALLATIONS, CINEMA, ART, PERFORMANCE, WORLD MUSIC, CIRCUS, CABARET AND PEOPLE
12 HUGE BAYS OF CAR SHOWROOM WITH MASSIVE WINDOWS FACING THE ROAD
EXHIBITION RUNS UNTIL END OF APRIL
OPENING APRIL 5TH 6PM. NO ENTRY AFTER MIDNIGHT

THE OLD MERCEDES SHOWROOM
OPPOSITE CAMDEN ARTS CENTRE
341 FINCHLEY ROAD NW3 6ET

07946 457908

EF! earth fist logo

MOVE Members Up Before The Parole Board

MOVE is an orga­ni­za­tion formed in Philadel­phia, Penn­syl­van­nia, in 1972 by John Africa. MOVE was described by CNN as “a loose-knit, most­ly black group whose mem­bers all adopt­ed the sur­name Africa, advo­cat­ed a ‘back-to-nature’ lifestyle and preached against tech­nol­o­gy.”

MOVE is an orga­ni­za­tion formed in Philadel­phia, Penn­syl­van­nia, in 1972 by John Africa. MOVE was described by CNN as “a loose-knit, most­ly black group whose mem­bers all adopt­ed the sur­name Africa, advo­cat­ed a ‘back-to-nature’ lifestyle and preached against tech­nol­o­gy.”

Their actions brought close scruti­ny from the Philadel­phia police. The event that esca­lat­ed MOVE ten­sions occurred in March 1976, when MOVE and Philadel­phia police skir­mished, leav­ing a num­ber of indi­vid­u­als on both sides injured. One of these was Life Africa, an infant that was killed in the attacks. This death was so heinous that it brought John Africa to move to a more Black-Pan­ther-esque type of armed resis­tance; that “MOVE would counter with vio­lence if attacked.” The down­ward spi­ral of action cul­mi­nat­ed in two events: MOVE’s out­side patrolling of their house with weapons and the lat­er 1978 shoot-out, which led to the death of Offi­cer James Ramp, and sev­er­al wound­ings. While the foren­sics expert at the lat­er MOVE Com­mis­sion would absolve MOVE from any mur­der charges as the bul­let was fired into the back of the offi­cers head, away from the house.

The group came to inter­na­tion­al atten­tion after an attempt in 1985 by the Philadel­phia Police Depart­ment to enforce out­stand­ing arrest war­rants for four mem­bers result­ed in the police fir­ing 10,000 rounds of ammu­ni­tion into the house and drop­ping a bomb con­tain­ing C‑4 and Tovex from a heli­copter onto MOVE’s res­i­dence. Eleven mem­bers died in the ensu­ing fire, includ­ing founder John Africa and five chil­dren. The 11 were killed after the deci­sion to let the bunker burn, shoot­ing at any­one that tried to leave the house. This fire ignit­ed a mas­sive blaze which even­tu­al­ly con­sumed almost an entire city block and left 240 peo­ple home­less.

Sev­en MOVE mem­bers who have been behind bars since 1978 for their part in the shoot-out that killed the Philadel­phia Police Offi­cer are up for parole in April — amid a swell of oppo­si­tion from police and pros­e­cu­tors. The sev­en were among nine MOVE mem­bers con­vict­ed in a 19-week tri­al in 1980 that, at the time, was the longest and most expen­sive in Penn­syl­va­nia his­to­ry. An eighth defen­dant will be eli­gi­ble for parole next year and a ninth died in prison. All nine were found guilty of third-degree mur­der in the shoot­ing of Ramp, and the attempt­ed mur­ders of the oth­ers shot and injured that day.

Offend­ers are usu­al­ly inter­viewed for parole con­sid­er­a­tion three months before they reach their min­i­mum sen­tence. Parole can be grant­ed at any time between the min­i­mum and the max­i­mum sen­tence. They were sen­tenced from 30 to 100 years.

Mem­bers of the group have long railed against the con­vic­tion of the nine, say­ing that pros­e­cu­tors were nev­er able to prove who fired the fatal shot. There was a lack of evi­dence pre­sent­ed dur­ing the tri­al, espe­cial­ly about the three female defen­dants, who were in the base­ment try­ing to pro­tect chil­dren dur­ing the con­fronta­tion.

To con­tact and express sup­port for their release, write or call:

Penn­syl­va­nia Board Of Pro­ba­tion and Parole
1101 South Front Street
Suite 5100
Har­ris­burg, PA 17104–2517
USA

Call 717–787-5699

MOVE say “We sug­gest that peo­ple start to call and write to the parole board in sup­port of our release in February/March since our parole hear­ing will be in ear­ly April. We ask that when pos­si­ble peo­ple send us a copy of the let­ters they write, so that we can take them to the parole hear­ing with us as a show of peo­ple who want us back home where we belong.

Thank­ing every­one in advance. Ona Move!”

Move mem­bers up for parole:

Janine Phillips Africa #006309
Deb­bie Sims Africa #006307
Janet Hol­loway Africa #006308
SCI-Cam­bridge Springs
451 Fuller­ton Ave.
Cam­bridge Springs, PA. 16403–1238
USA

Michael Davis Africa #AM-4973
Charles Sims Africa #AM-4975
SCI-Graster­ford
PO Box 244
Graster­ford, PA 19426–0244
USA

Edward Good­man Africa #AM-4974
SCI-Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932–0001
USA

William Phillips Africa #AM-4984
Del­bert Orr Africa #AM-4985
SCI-Dal­las
1000 Fol­lies Road
Dal­las, PA 18612–0286
USA

All of those list­ed above have served 30 years of an unjust 100 year sen­tence!

We also sug­gest that folks con­tact our folks out there to see if they have any­thing that peo­ple can do to be of help in this sit­u­a­tion. They can be con­tact­ed at:

The Move Orga­ni­za­tion
PO Box 19709
Phi­la, PA 19143
610–499-0979
USA

+++

Below is a stan­dard let­ter for you to send to the parole board:

+++

Penn­syl­va­nia Board Of Pro­ba­tion and Parole
1101 South Front Street
Suite 5100
Har­ris­burg, PA 17104–2517
USA

Dear Penn­syl­va­nia Board Of Pro­ba­tion and Parole,

Sev­er­al peo­ple that are mem­bers of an orga­ni­za­tion called MOVE are up before the Parole board in April and I want­ed to write you a let­ter in sup­port of and to urge you to seri­ous­ly con­sid­er them being grant­ed parole. All peo­ple I have list­ed below have served 30 years of an unjust 100 year sen­tence.

I have read that “sev­en MOVE mem­bers, who have been behind bars since 1978 for their part in the shoot-out that killed a Philadel­phia Police Offi­cer, are up for parole in April — amid a swell of oppo­si­tion from police and pros­e­cu­tors”. I also know that pros­e­cu­tors were nev­er able to prove who fired the fatal shot and there was a lack of evi­dence pre­sent­ed dur­ing the tri­al, espe­cial­ly about the three female defen­dants, who were in the base­ment try­ing to pro­tect chil­dren dur­ing the con­fronta­tion.

I hope the parole board will agree with me that 30 years is long enough and these peo­ple should be returned to their fam­i­lies:

Janine Phillips Africa #006309
Deb­bie Sims Africa #006307
Janet Hol­loway Africa #006308
SCI-Cam­bridge Springs
451 Fuller­ton Ave.
Cam­bridge Springs, PA. 16403–1238
USA

Michael Davis Africa #AM-4973
Charles Sims Africa #AM-4975
SCI-Graster­ford
PO Box 244
Graster­ford, PA 19426–0244
USA

Edward Good­man Africa #AM-4974
SCI-Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932–0001
USA

William Phillips Africa #AM-4984
Del­bert Orr Africa #AM-4985
SCI-Dal­las
1000 Fol­lies Road
Dal­las, PA 18612–0286
USA

Yours sin­cere­ly

on a move!

http://www.onamove.com/

Autonomous spaces weekend — pre-announced events (London, Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham, Reading, Bristol)

ASS Ben­e­fit & More 11th ‑13th April

ASS ben­e­fit
Open access squat­ters-hous­ing-land art — pho­tog­ra­phy exhi­bi­tion
Work­shops & stalls
Cin­e­ma
Actions

ASS Ben­e­fit & More 11th ‑13th April
ASS flier
ASS ben­e­fit
Open access squat­ters-hous­ing-land art — pho­tog­ra­phy exhi­bi­tion
Work­shops & stalls
Cin­e­ma
Actions

Week­end long social centre/s event in Lon­don in occu­pied space/s to coin­cide with the Europe-wide days of action in defence of free spaces and for an anti-cap­i­tal­ist pop­u­lar cul­ture.

Var­i­ous venues still to be con­firmed, more info com­ing soon.

Advi­so­ry Ser­vice
housingmatters@hushmail.com
http://www.squatter.org.uk

——
Space Invader Crop Circle
MANCHESTER SPACE INVADERS LINE UP
Man­ches­ter Space Invaders are a col­lec­tive of autonomous groups and indi­vid­u­als work­ing togeth­er to reclaim our city…we are mobi­liz­ing to fight gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, ‘regen­er­a­tion’ and all the bor­ders that exist with­in the city. We call for all groups, indi­vid­u­als, net­works and fam­i­lies to get involved and to join in our glo­ri­ous cel­e­bra­tion of autonomous spaces…

THURS 28TH MARCH
SPACE INVADERS MEETING 6pm
SQUAT FILM NITE 7pm
Films about squat­ting: secur­ing a build­ing, evic­tion, cul­ture..
bring your own films!
Get involved in prepa­ra­tions for the days of action!
Pop­corn, veg­an cake and beer!
For loca­tion email manchesterspaceinvaders@yahoo.co.uk..

FRIDAY 11TH
SPACE INVADERS BAND NITE
The week­end will kick off from 5pm on Friday..come to the squat for food, music and help cre­ate the space…bring yer mates, art mate­ri­als and enjoy the sounds of GNOD, CASH FOR YOUR STORIES, THE AUTONOMADS, SONIC BOOMSIX..and more!
Loca­tion TBC…call for more info

SATURDAY 12TH
I BIKE MCR BIKE ART PARADE
Dress your­self and your bike up for a bike art parade..Any theme for fan­cy dress for you and your bike is welcome..why not make it cos­mic for some fun with the Space Invaders!?
Meet All Saints Park on Sat­ur­day 12th April at 2pm for a nice pic­nic in the park and to admire each oth­ers fan­ci­ly dec­o­rat­ed steeds and riders(bring some nice pic­nic food and drink)..also if you don’t get chance to bling your bike before you come, there will be oppor­tu­ni­ty and mate­ri­als to do it there… then we shall ride around the city show­ing off how grea­tour blinged-up bikes look…..ending up at the Man­ches­ter Autonomous Spaces Squat where there will be food and enter­tain­ment and all sorts of excit­ing activ­i­ty!!!
http://ibikemcr.org.uk

PARK FUN DAY…SAT 12TH
Cathe­dral Gar­dens, out­side Urbis from 1pm to 6pm..
Bring your fam­i­ly and friends, pic­nics and crafts!
Folk bands, a soundsys­tem, mag­ic tricks, street the­atre and art ses­sion!
Tran­sis­ter mad­ness with our mobile sound system…bring your portable radio!
Get cre­ative and get involved before reclaim­ing the city with No Bor­ders…

DEMONSTRATION IN DEFENCE OF AUTONOMOUS SPACES SAT 12TH
Sat­ur­day, April 12,a demon­stra­tion for FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT FOR ALL and IN DEFENCE OF AUTONOMOUS SPACES.Assemble at Urbis (next to Vic­to­ria Sta­tion), 5pm
Check http://www.april-12.blogspot.com/ for updates.
Across the coun­try cities are being sold to the high­est bid­ders. The dri­ve for ‘regen­er­a­tion’ is demol­ish­ing homes, mar­gin­al­is­ing com­mu­ni­ties, pri­vatis­ing pub­lic space and clos­ing down vital com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices. There has sel­dom been a time when fight­ing for autonomous spaces in Man­ches­ter has been more impor­tant.
The strug­gle for self-organ­i­sa­tion and social auton­o­my brings migrants and squat­ters into inevitable con­fronta­tion with the exist­ing social and polit­i­cal sys­tem. Self-organ­i­sa­tion does not mean liv­ing out­side of soci­ety. We want to live in it but accord­ing to our own rules. We want to eman­ci­pate our­selves from the cap­i­tal­ist process­es that gov­ern our city and our lives, with­out turn­ing our backs to soci­ety.

INFO manchesterspaceinvaders@yahoo.co.uk
http://mcraz.wordpress.com
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/manchester/

SUBSCRIBE https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/manchesterspaceinvaders

CALL 07526256932 AFTER 6TH APRIL
.….….
MORE EVENTS TBC CLOSER TO THE TIME.…if you could offer a workshop/equipment/skills/time.…get in touch and join the invaders!

manchesterspaceinvaders@yahoo.co.uk
http://mcraz.wordpress.com/

——

the Auda­cious Space free cafe & info-shop

A Cel­e­bra­tion of Free Spaces
Leeds City Cen­tre, Fri­day 11th — Sat­ur­day 12th April 2008

Part of the inter­na­tion­al week­end of action in sup­port of squats and autonomous spaces around the world (see www.april2008.squat.net for more info).

Across the world, com­mu­ni­ties are under threat as city “regen­er­a­tion schemes” favour a glam­orous , busi­ness-friend­ly envi­ron­ment over and above issues such as com­mu­ni­ty,. social hous­ing and diver­si­ty. Leeds is no excep­tion as PFIs and sim­i­lar pri­va­tised “regen­er­a­tion” pro­grammes threat­en com­mu­ni­ties across the city.

We want to show that com­mu­ni­ties through­out our city are not pre­pared to lie down and accept this!

For this week­end we are plan­ning a squat­ted space in Leeds City Cen­tre, fea­tur­ing:

- cafe
— focus on hous­ing / squat­ting / gen­tri­fi­ca­tion
— free shop
— fam­i­ly friend­ly space: day­time cafe will be alco­hol-free & drug-free space
— oppor­tu­ni­ty to link up with oth­er com­mu­ni­ties threat­ened by the above issues

…but most impor­tant­ly the space will be open for what­ev­er you want it to be: an oppor­tu­ni­ty for films, dis­plays, art, work­shops… to get involved give us an email on leedssquat@googlemail.com or call 07526 261061.

The venue will be an easy walk from Leeds city cen­tre / train sta­tion / bus sta­tion — for loca­tion please call 07526 261061 or email leedssquat@googlemail.com
——–

Action for squats and autonomous spaces in Not­ting­ham

On Fri­day 11th and Sat­ur­day 12th of April, we are plan­ning to answer the inter­na­tion­al call out for two days of demon­stra­tion, direct action, pub­lic infor­ma­tion, street-par­ty, squat­ting etc in defence of free spaces and for an anti-cap­i­tal­ist pop­u­lar cul­ture.

Peo­ple from a num­ber of cities across the UK have already announced that tem­po­rary autonomous spaces will open for the 11th and 12th of April 2008. A group of peo­ple will open a tem­po­rary autonomous space in Not­ting­ham city cen­tre. We want this (hope­ful­ly) vibrant and pub­lic space to be an exu­ber­ant response to news of a final clo­sure of the ASBO.

By vis­i­bly tak­ing a space in the city cen­tre, we intend to raise aware­ness of squat­ting and so con­tribute to a future of squat­ting in Not­ting­ham with more long-term squats else­where in the city.

One goal for this week­end of action will be to inspire and empow­er peo­ple who have pre­vi­ous­ly been unfa­mil­iar with squat­ting. By pro­vid­ing mate­ri­als and infor­ma­tion, work­shops, squat­ters’ hand­books and by relay­ing our own expe­ri­ences, we can enable peo­ple to house them­selves with­out com­pro­mis­ing with cap­i­tal­ism. In addi­tion, we can utilise the autonomous envi­ron­ment cre­at­ed by squat­ting for oth­er needs than hous­ing. Dis­cussing cam­paigns and shar­ing knowl­edge and skills we can sup­port one anoth­er and be
empow­ered our­selves, as well as draw­ing in new peo­ple by cre­at­ing a vibrant and excit­ing place to be. This can be in the form of food, work­shops, films, art, talks — and absolute­ly any­thing you are moti­vat­ed to pro­vide.

Over the last few weeks of meet­ings we’ve made some basic logis­ti­cal deci­sions. We wel­come cre­ative, ener­getic and/or enthu­si­as­tic peo­ple, and every­one else, to help us realise and then use the space. Every Tues­day at 7pm we will have open plan­ning meet­ings to dis­cuss and plan the week­end. These meet­ings will be held at the Sumac Cen­tre, 245 Glad­stone Street, For­est Fields, Not­ting­ham.

Alter­na­tive­ly, you can con­tact us at squatnottingham@hotmail.co.uk

——

Free Social Space week­end of events in Birm­ing­ham, April 11th to 13th 2008

As part of the Europe-wide call for decen­tralised action for squats and autonomous spaces (see http://april2008.squat.net/ ), there will be a tem­po­rary free space and week­end of work­shops and events in Birm­ing­ham on the 11th to 13th of April.

CALL OUT: FREE SPACE BIRMINGHAM AND THE EUROPE-WIDE CALL OUT FOR SQUATTED SOCIAL SPACES.

Across Europe on the week­end of April 11th-13th, peo­ple will be tak­ing over build­ings and open spaces left aban­doned by state or pri­vate con­cerns. For one week­end we will be unit­ed in a fes­ti­val of resis­tance across Europe. (see http://april2008.squat.net/ )

Birm­ing­ham, UK will be respond­ing to this call and invite you to join in. We’re a group of peo­ple who have formed an autonomous vol­un­tary col­lec­tive. We have no boss­es to obey, no share­hold­ers to feed and make deci­sions by con­sen­sus, all pulling our weight.

We have cho­sen to occu­py an emp­ty build­ing in the city (close to Birm­ing­ham’s main rail sta­tions and the city cen­tre) for the week­end, hope­ful­ly to improve its neglect­ed con­di­tion and open it up for the ben­e­fit of the city of which we are a part.

We hope you can join us for this event, and invite you to join our col­lec­tive or form your own with sim­i­lar aims.

Come and learn stuff, play games and enjoy the food and com­pa­ny — or come and facil­i­tate a dis­cus­sion, play a song, sing and dance.

EVENTS:

Work­shops includ­ing: bike repair and main­te­nance, con­sen­sus deci­sion mak­ing, action against cli­mate change, dis­abil­i­ty rights and pol­i­tics, 12volt elec­tric­i­ty, LETS, per­ma­cul­ture, gueril­la gar­den­ing, intro­duc­tion to social cen­tres, hous­ing rights, DIY arts (jew­ellery mak­ing, paper mache, sculp­ture and mak­ing banners)and many more…

Demon­stra­tion against gen­tri­fi­ca­tion and for free space out­side Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil head­quar­ters on Fri­day 11th (see next arti­cle)

Enter­tain­ment includ­ing an open mic night, film show­ings and live bands (TBC)

Free shop

Food by Birm­ing­ham Food Not Bombs

WHY SQUATTING?

There is a long tra­di­tion and his­to­ry of squat­ting in the British Isles, dat­ing from at least the 14th cen­tu­ry, as peo­ple occu­pied land pre­vi­ous­ly worked and occu­pied in com­mon. The mania for enclos­ing land as pri­vate has always been resist­ed. The Dig­gers, lev­ellers and oth­ers in the tur­bu­lent peri­od of the 17th cen­tu­ry occu­pied land for com­mon use.

The prac­tice of occu­py­ing build­ings became pop­u­lar amongst de-mobilised sol­diers in the 20th cen­tu­ry. Return­ing home from the Great and Sec­ond World wars, find­ing none of the promised ‘homes fit for heroes’, squat­ting emp­ty build­ings was a com­mon method of grow­ing viable homes in the cracks and emp­ty matri­ces of post-war Britain.

More recent­ly, squat­ting enjoyed a revival in the 1960s and 70s against the dis­as­trous hous­ing and archi­tec­tur­al poli­cies of the time. And in the last ten years there has been a revival of squat­ting to answer the need for social space as well as hous­ing need. Today squat­ting acts as a bul­wark against and alter­na­tive to gen­tri­fi­ca­tion — the growth of exclu­sive hous­ing for the rich, push­ing out the poor. This is what’s hap­pen­ing in Dig­beth.

Squats are por­tals into oth­er soci­eties. Places where real alter­na­tives can be grown and autonomous col­lec­tive ways of organ­is­ing and liv­ing found free of red tape, in places oth­er­wise left emp­ty and wast­ed.

There’s noth­ing ‘dirty’ about squat­ting. On the con­trary, the prac­tice cleans up after the waste and dis-ease pro­duced by cap­i­tal­is­tic author­i­tar­i­an­ism, trans­form­ing wast­ed space into lib­er­at­ed space. Thus many peo­ple pre­fer the term ‘free space’ as an alter­na­tive to ‘squat’.

WHY SOCIAL CENTRES?

A viable social cen­tre can be squat­ted (occu­pied), or facil­i­tat­ed through bureau­crat­ic means such as rent­ing or pur­chase. In recent years there has been a growth in social cen­tres across Britain, from Man­ches­ter to Bris­tol, Lon­don to Leeds, Glas­gow to Not­ting­ham and in Birm­ing­ham too.

In cre­at­ing a short term occu­pied social cen­tre we hope to cre­ate a free space for the ben­e­fit of the city. The only real lim­it on what can hap­pen in a social cen­tre is the imag­i­na­tion. Since we respect the integri­ty of the build­ing and don’t trash it (unlike its ‘own­ers’) we can as a col­lec­tive open it for pos­i­tive com­mu­ni­ty projects. Social Cen­tres can and have been used for: film screen­ings, healthy food and drink, libraries of books and infor­ma­tion exchange (includ­ing free inter­net access), freeshops (the free exchange of goods) and all man­ner of creative/artistic projects,
and polit­i­cal organ­is­ing around local and glob­al issues.

In these times, when coun­cils are clos­ing and pri­vatis­ing pub­lic facil­i­ties hard won by our fore­bears, social cen­tres are an invalu­able part of soci­ety today, ful­fill­ing an increas­ing­ly ignored need.

Free Space Col­lec­tive
freespacebrum@riseup.net
http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/birmingham_social_centre

–

Details of what’s on in Brum:

The venue will be with­in a short walk of the Cus­tard Fac­to­ry and of Moor Street Sta­tion — email freespacebrum@riseup.net or phone 07527580190 for exact loca­tion details.

FRIDAY 11TH APRIL:

10.00am (approx): Venue opens

11am — 1.30pm (approx): Ban­ner and prop mak­ing for demo (see below)

2pm: “Stop Sell­ing Off Our City” demo out­side Coun­cil House (see http://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2008/04/395252.html )

5pm (approx): Return to tem­po­rary social cen­tre

6pm: Talk on pub­lic sec­tor pri­vati­sa­tion and gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, fol­lowed by din­ner cour­tesy of Birm­ing­ham Food Not Bombs

8pm onwards: Acoustic open mic night — all singers, poets, musi­cians and per­for­mance artists wel­come…

SATURDAY 12TH APRIL:

11am — 1pm:
Work­shop A: Intro­duc­tion to Social Cen­tres
Work­shop B: Bike repair and main­te­nance (pos­si­bly ongo­ing for rest of Sat)
Work­shop C: Jew­ellery mak­ing

1–2pm: Lunch

2–4pm:
Work­shop A: Talk by Mex­i­can activist on the Zap­atista move­ment
Work­shop B: Local Exchange Trad­ing Schemes (LETS)
Work­shop C: T‑shirt print­ing

4–6pm:
Work­shop A: Talk on the UK dis­abil­i­ty rights move­ment
Work­shop B: 12Volt elec­tric­i­ty
Work­shop C: Art from recy­cled mate­ri­als

6–7pm: Din­ner by Birm­ing­ham Food Not Bombs

7–9pm:
Work­shop A: Squat­ting and land rights
Work­shop B: Pales­tine sol­i­dar­i­ty
Work­shop C: Poi/fire spin­ning

9pm onwards: evening enter­tain­ment TBC

SUNDAY 13TH APRIL:

11am — 1pm:
Work­shop A: Per­ma­cul­ture and Tran­si­tion Towns
Work­shop B: Rock­et stoves (DIY wood burn­ing stoves)
Work­shop C: Face mas­sage

1–2pm: Lunch

2–4pm:
Work­shop A: Intro­duc­tion to co-oper­a­tives (Rad­i­cal Routes)
Work­shop B: Cli­mate change activism, includ­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action
Work­shop C: Poet­ry

4–6pm:
Work­shop A: Con­sen­sus deci­sion mak­ing
Work­shop B: Sten­cil art
Work­shop C: Gueril­la gar­den­ing

6–7pm: Din­ner by Birm­ing­ham Food Not Bombs

7–9pm: “What Next?” The future of free social spaces in Birm­ing­ham — dis­cus­sion, all wel­come to par­tic­i­pate and make sug­ges­tions!

All work­shops sub­ject to time change or can­cel­la­tion depend­ing on num­ber of peo­ple inter­est­ed.
——–

Autonomous Space Events in Read­ing! Com­mon Ground to be Reopened!

As part of the glob­al days of action for squats and autonomous spaces (see http://april2008.squat.net for two (maybe three!) events will take place in Read­ing, Berks.

FRIDAY 11TH APRIL:

* Free Cafe Event*

Read­ing Grass­roots Action will hold a free cafe event in a pri­va­tised area of the river­side in the Town Cen­tre. The action will aim to tem­porar­i­ly reclaim some space in the town cen­tre, pub­li­cise fur­ther events and organ­i­sa­tion and spread infor­ma­tion on sev­er­al linked up strug­gles from the autonomous spaces move­ments to the Zap­atis­tas and from com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens to Star­bucks work­ers. Hope­ful­ly a film will be shown illus­trat­ing the glob­al resis­tance against empire and good free food and Zap­atista cof­fee will be giv­en out.

SATURDAY 12TH APRIL:

* Com­mon Ground Squat­ted Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den will be Re-Opened!*

Com­mon Ground — a squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty gar­den in Kates­grove area of Read­ing — was closed down by Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil in Octo­ber 07, fol­low­ing two pre­vi­ous­ly unsuc­sess­ful evic­tion dates.

But on Sat 12th April, it will once again by opened to the pub­lic!

- Free Entry from 1pm!

- Free BBQ (trad & veg­an options) from 3pm!

- Live Acoustic Music from 5pm!

Fea­tur­ing:

* Neil Suther­land — Pos­i­tive folk-punk in the vein of Bil­ly Bragg.
* Clay­ton Bliz­zard — Acoustic hip hop — lyri­cal genius!
* Smoky Bas­tard — Irish style folk-punk in vein of Flog­ging Molly/Pogues/Dropkicks
* Kel­ly Kemp — Coun­try style folk-punk from ex-vocal­ist of No Com­ply
* Nao­mi Hates Humans — Soul­ful folk-punk melodies
* Sam Rus­so — “Boss mad sounds!”

LOCATION:

Entrance is through the alley­way, next to ex-Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, Sil­ver Street, Read­ing, RG2. It’s two mins from town cen­tre, just up Lon­don Street from Glob­al Cafe/Great Expec­ta­tions.

Q: “But wont the cops stop us?!”

A: “Nev­er fear, Plan B is here!”

If the mis­er­able coun­cil and moody cop­pers stop us, we’ll go cheer them up…

… by mov­ing the entire event out­side their offices!

So, if you can’t find us at Com­mon Ground, ring 07757280546 on the day for lat­est info!

Hope to see ya then!

P.S. We’ve even heard rumour of a free par­ty in town that night, so keep yer ears to the dirty Read­ing ground.…..

katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk
http://www.rgacollective.org.uk

——–
Bristol autonomous weekend flier front
Bris­tol: with the Broad­mead Expan­sion and its spillover into St Pauls and Old Mar­ket that is dis­plac­ing our local com­mu­ni­ties, the time is now to take mat­ters into our own hands and reclaim our pub­lic spaces.

For more info call: 07528 953 230 / 07591 631 230

FRIDAY 11th
— day­time: Come help cre­ate the space
— evening: Film night from 7pm

SATURDAY 12th
— Car­ni­val Parade start­ing from Albany Green St. Pauls at 11am.
— Art Exhi­bi­tion open all day
— Cabaret/Open mic, live music

REPAIR NOT REDEVELOP

Yup­pie flats are not part of a sus­tain­able future and are push­ing social hous­ing out of the city cen­tre. Resist the dis­place­ment of local peo­ple and join the parade!

Come One, Come All!
Take back our pub­lic space – If this moti­vates you spread the Word!

Inter­na­tion­al Days of Action for Squats and Autonomous Pub­lic Spaces have been called for on the 11th and 12th of April 2008. http://april2008.squat.net:8080/. Diverse groups of enraged cre­atives from Prague to New Zealand will be tak­ing things into their own hands: reclaim­ing spaces for art, hous­ing, work­shops, dis­cus­sions, talks, films, food, swap-shops, music, per­for­mances & open mics to name but the bare essen­tials.

Whilst their motives are local­ly spe­cif­ic, these autonomous actions are drawn togeth­er inter­na­tion­al­ly by com­mon threads: indig­na­tion at the impend­ing grip that cor­po­rate expan­sion has on our cities; dimin­ish­ing social hous­ing; ‘stream­lined’ rents; the homogeni­sa­tion of the high street with cor­po­rate chains; the seg­re­ga­tion of cities along the lines of wealth and pow­er…

Here in Bris­tol we will be reclaim­ing a pri­vate space and breath­ing life back into it momen­tar­i­ly for a pub­lic week­end of cel­e­bra­tion. As a rup­ture with the march of high speed com­mer­cial exis­tence, we will show films, parade through the streets, open space for art and work­shops, cook and eat food, lis­ten to music and live a lit­tle. Whether you’re a lock break­ing spe­cial­ist, poet, painter or film-mak­er and would like to get involved — or if you just want to come have a look at what can be done with love and shoe­string — come along!

The car­ni­val pro­ces­sion will make its way through Bris­tol on Sat­ur­day 12th. We will assem­ble at Albany Green, St Pauls at 11am for the start of the parade – bring friends and fam­i­ly, whis­tles and horns, ped­al pow­er and music. By tak­ing back our streets we’ll show our com­mu­ni­ties are fed up with the odi­ous creep­ing hand of shiny rede­vel­op­ment. And in prepa­ra­tion: come cre­ate cos­tumes, ban­ners and car­ni­val trim­mings at work­shops in the space the day before, Fri­day 11th.

This open invi­ta­tion is a call out to com­mu­ni­ties and indi­vid­u­als of all skills and inter­ests that can help make these days as vis­i­ble as pos­si­ble- take action in OUR city! Come join to raise aware­ness that there is an alter­na­tive, and resist the aggres­sive pri­vate expan­sion into our pub­lic spaces.

http://april2008.squat.net/index.php/category/english/lang-pref/en
Bristol autonomous weekend flier back

–

More Bris­tol details: Save Stokes Croft

Sat­ur­day 12th April: Protest Against Gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of Cen­tral Bris­tol

11.00am Albany Green, St. Pauls and 2.00pm Broad­mead (Cen­tre)

Bris­tol is under­go­ing mas­sive attacks on our free spaces and cul­ture by prop­er­ty devel­op­ers and their friends in the City Coun­cil. Across the city green spaces, pubs, clubs and ameni­ties are being closed and sold off with lit­tle con­sul­ta­tion with the com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed.

So if you oppose the…

* Threat of clo­sure of the clubs and pubs on Stokes Croft (Clock­work, Lako­ta, Blue Moun­tain, Junc­tion)
* The threat­ened sell off of Cas­tle Park to the devel­op­ers
* The loss of play­ing fields and green spaces city-wide
* The ‘pri­vate streets’ of Cabot Cir­cus
* The dis­per­sion orders on Col­lege Green
* The removal of the Bris­tol-Bath cycle path
* The loss of pubs and meet­ing spaces in our com­mu­ni­ties

On Sat­ur­day 12th April there will be street protests against the gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of Cen­tral Bris­tol. There will be two meet­ing points:

11.00am Albany Green, St. Pauls: Join the ‘Bris­tol Space Inva­sion’ Car­ni­val Parade as part of a europe wide week­end of action against the pri­vati­sa­tion of pub­lic space

Join­ing with…

2.00am Broad­mead (Cen­tre): ‘Save Stokes Croft from Gen­tri­fi­ca­tion’ par­ty parade going to Col­lege Green

After the parades come along to Bris­tol Space Inva­sion Autonomous Zone fea­tur­ing Art, per­for­mance, cin­e­ma, open-mic and live music — ALL FOR FREE! — Call 07528 953 230 or 07591 631 230 on the day for details of pre­cise loca­tion.

Please show your oppo­si­tion to the destruc­tion of our places, spaces and cul­ture, before its too late.

See you there.…

Save Stokes Croft and Bris­tol Space Inva­sion

1st April — Manchester Fossil Fools Parade! / London Protest circus for a coal Fossil Fool / Notts / Leamington Spa

We’ve all been fos­sil fooled and now…the Cli­mate Cir­cus is com­ing to Man­ches­ter.…
Join the Fos­sil Fools Parade on April 1st
and take part in fun and games with some of our best known local Fos­sil Fools!

That’s right this event is all about con­grat­u­lat­ing our spon­sors

Jester with spannerWe’ve all been fos­sil fooled and now…the Cli­mate Cir­cus is com­ing to Man­ches­ter.…
Join the Fos­sil Fools Parade on April 1st
and take part in fun and games with some of our best known local Fos­sil Fools!

That’s right this event is all about con­grat­u­lat­ing our spon­sors
RBS, Man­ches­ter Flight Cen­tres, Petrol Sta­tions, The City Coun­cil and oth­er
experts in pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change and destruc­tion of our glob­al
eco sys­tems.

The Parade will meet at 10.30am out­side AMC cin­e­ma in Deans­gate and
fin­ish with a street par­ty out­side the Town Hall (by 12 pm).

Fea­tur­ing music, mad­ness and veg­an cakes — lets make this a hol­i­day at
home and encour­age peo­ple to leave fos­sil fuels in the past.

Dress in suits, as clowns, come as a fos­sil fuel or a fos­sil fool but
come!!

Please cir­cu­late this invite wide­ly!

—————-

Protest cir­cus for a coal Fos­sil Fool (BERR, 1 Vic­to­ria Street, Lon­don, 8 am on 1 April 2008)

(please post far and wide)

1st April is set to pack a punch this year. Across the world April Fool’s Day is being marked by cli­mate change activists as Fos­sil Fool’s Day, a day of action against the cli­mate wreck­ing fos­sil fuel indus­try.

For those not able to take the many direct actions of the day, the Lon­don World Devel­op­ment Move­ment groups are co-ordi­nat­ing a hilar­i­ous protest out­side the Depart­ment for Enter­prise Busi­ness and Reg­u­la­to­ry Reform (or BERR) to laugh at the min­is­ter for busi­ness, John Hut­ton. John Hut­ton is cur­rent­ly set to make a right fool of the gov­ern­men­t’s cli­mate pol­i­cy if he signs off on EON’s new Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion.

Every­one’s wel­come to join in the col­lec­tive hilar­i­ty and to demand Hut­ton takes the Kingsnorth deci­sion very seri­ous­ly. There will be a real cir­cus feel, with jug­glers, clowns and acro­bats, so don’t hes­i­tate to bring jug­gling balls or wear your squeaky nose or sil­ly hat.

Protest starts at 8am and will be over in time for you to be at work. Con­tact Rachel on 0207 8204900 for more infor­ma­tion.

More infor­ma­tion on the Kingsnorth cam­paign, see www.stopkingsnorth.org

More infor­ma­tion on Fos­sil Fool’s day, see www.fossilfoolsday.org

—

Funer­al for coal in Par­lia­ment square, Lon­don
Meet at 11 AM in Par­lia­ment Square

The Peo­ple & Plan­et net­work invites you to join us at an action and
mass lob­by. We will be build­ing a coal pow­er sta­tion com­plete with 12ft cool­ing tow­ers in West­min­ster, while peo­ple dressed in Jesters hats and Gor­don Brown masks will ‘burn’ a mock Cli­mate Change Bill.

Con­tact james.lloyd@peopleandplanet.org for more infor­ma­tion.
http://peopleandplanet.org/nonewcoal

—

Pub­lic Apol­o­gy on behalf of Porsche, Lon­don
Meet 7.15 AM, Bond Street tube sta­tion

Pos­ing as protest­ing polar bears and pen­guins, green­wash win­dow clean­ers and con­cerned cus­tomers, help Porsche say sor­ry:
• “For being so pig­head­ed in push­ing for a judi­cial review of the recent changes in the con­ges­tion charge. A bit rash we know! Sor­ry. But now that we think about it, the change does actu­al­ly seem quite a good idea.”
• “And ok, you’ve got us, with a few of our mates, we have been doing our best to rail­road EU plans to set bind­ing emis­sions tar­gets for gas guz­zlers by 2012. Can’t blame us for hav­ing a go though can you…ok so you can. But look, we know it’s wrong”.
• “Oh, and last, but by no means least, we should stop claim­ing we’re ‘green’ while mak­ing incred­i­bly pol­lut­ing cars. So we’re pleased to announce a new con­cept mod­el, tak­ing the 4×4 into the 2×2 age.”

More info: e‑mail thomas_fern@hotmail.com or call Richard on 0796 046 5594

———————-

Roll up, roll up! The cli­mate cir­cus is in town. Con­front­ed with melt­ing ice caps, unprece­dent­ed species extinc­tion, droughts and extreme weath­er, cli­mate change threat­ens our very sur­vival. The fools at the head of the fos­sil fuel empire con­tin­ue to plun­der the earth, with the gov­ern­ments as will­ing court jesters at their side.

They would have us believe that we can escape cli­mate change with tech­no-fix­es, mar­ket mech­a­nisms and off­set schemes — all tech­no­crat­ic acro­bat­ics that dis­tract us from the truth: the only real solu­tion to cli­mate change is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

On April 1st, 2008, we’re going to turn the tables and show them who the real fools are.

Nation­al­ly peo­ple will be tar­get­ing fos­sil fools — See the clowns invest­ing in coal — The car­bon off­set con­tor­tion­ist or the oily strong man? join­ing with thou­sands around the world in tak­ing one step clos­er to dis­man­tling the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

In Not­ting­ham we are going to take action on a local Fos­sil Fool. We are meet­ing at Mar­ket Square Tram Stop at 8am to head off togeth­er on a mag­i­cal mys­tery tour to a cli­mate clown near us.

Dress 4 Cli­mate Chaos: Ski Hat, Bermu­da Shorts and Wellies; Som­brero and Rain­coat; Swim­suits and Woolens; Flipflops, Umbrel­las and Sun­glass­es; what­ev­er you think the weath­er may do today. Bring ban­ners and plac­ards against cli­mate chaos and lets pull a prank that packs a punch

info@eastsideclimateaction.org.uk
http://www.fossilfoolsdayofaction.org

———————-

Ris­ing Tide “Fos­sil Fools Day” “Fun Demo” Leam­ing­ton Spa

Roll up, roll up! The cli­mate cir­cus is in town. Con­front­ed with melt­ing ice caps, unprece­dent­ed species extinc­tion, droughts and extreme weath­er, cli­mate change threat­ens our very sur­vival. The fools at the head of the fos­sil fuel empire con­tin­ue to plun­der the earth, with the gov­ern­ments as will­ing court jesters at their side.

They would have us believe that we can escape cli­mate change with tech­no-fix­es, mar­ket mech­a­nisms and off­set schemes — all tech­no­crat­ic acro­bat­ics that dis­tract us from the truth: the only real solu­tion to cli­mate change is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

On April 1st, 2008, we’re going to turn the tables and show them who the real fools are.

JOIN US IN LEAMINGTON SPA TO PROTEST AGAINST THE PROPOSED CLARENDON SHOPPING ARCADE…DO WE NEED MORE SHOPS? CONSUMERISM CAUSES CLIMATE CHAOS! Make the con­nec­tion between OIL and RETAIL THERAPY — come in fan­cy dress, bring music, bikes, a sense of humour, chil­dren WELCOME.

Assem­ble BATH PLACE COMMUNITY VENTURE, @ BATH PLACE, LEAMINGTON http://www.bathplace.org 12.00 for a 12.30 march around Leam­ing­ton. Fin­ish­ing at the TOWN HALL.

Please call 07782 299181 for any fur­ther infor­ma­tion.

RATH LUGH UPDATE — updated

THURS MORNING 20th MARCH
Bull­doz­er plough­ing into Esker. Gar­da Riot Van with shields on win­dow at Lis­mullin and cement mix­er on road from Lis­mullin approach. Pro­tec­tors have not react­ed yet.

Sit­u­a­tion tense. Sup­port­ers need­ed. Bring phone cred­it, cam­era and video equip­ment etc. Stand­by.

—

Rath Lugh digger sittingTHURS MORNING 20th MARCH
Bull­doz­er plough­ing into Esker. Gar­da Riot Van with shields on win­dow at Lis­mullin and cement mix­er on road from Lis­mullin approach. Pro­tec­tors have not react­ed yet.

Sit­u­a­tion tense. Sup­port­ers need­ed. Bring phone cred­it, cam­era and video equip­ment etc. Stand­by.

—

There are 50 secu­ri­ty at rath lugh, and secu­ri­ty walk­ing through the camps in the woods prepar­ing for the evic­tion, we need more peo­ple urgent­ly!!!!
Please bring, poly prop, for walk ways in the trees, batteries,video equip­ment, cam­eras., warm blan­kets and food, any sup­port would be grate­ful­ly recieved thanks

—

Mas­sive pres­ence of Secu­ri­ty and Work­ers esti­mat­ed now at 100.
3 Riot Vans in the vicin­i­ty.
2 Dig­gers work­ing on the Esker.
2 Fer­rovial tak­ing pho­tographs of tents and ben­ders.
Jour­nal­ist talk­ing to Squeek.

Help need­ed urgent­ly.

—–

FRI 21ST MARCH

8.30am — at least 8 dig­gers
6 Gar­daí and about 40 Con­struc­tion Work­ers bring­ing in top­soil and earth at Rath Lugh.
They are not work­ing on shoring up the esker but on actu­al con­struc­tion.
Over 40 Secu­ri­ty are lin­ing BOTH sides of the route at RL.

…

NRA con­trac­tors cut into Rath Lugh Mon­u­ment near Tara

The mound upon which ancient Rath Lugh rests is now being sliced for the M3 Motor­way.

Good Fri­day News­flash from the Tara Foun­da­tion:

The mound upon which ancient Rath Lugh rests is now being sliced for the M3 Motor­way.

The Nation­al Roads Author­i­ty has stat­ed work is advanc­ing on the M3 motor­way in the area close to Rath Lugh where pro­tes­tors have set up camp. Up to fifty Gar­daí are said to be at the scene.

The NRA says it is putting in place what is known as a ‘box cut’, which out­lines the road’s route. It is also build­ing a quib wall and secu­ri­ty fenc­ing. It says the steps are being tak­en for health and safe­ty rea­sons, and with the advice and con­sent of the Gar­daí.

The NRA alleges that work­ers at Rath Lugh are being intim­i­dat­ed by pro­tes­tors, and that a civ­il under­stand­ing reached with Lisa Feeney allow­ing for the fenc­ing to be put in place has not been hon­oured. Pre­vi­ous­ly the NRA had claimed that no agree­ment was reached with the tun­nel pro­tes­tor.

Pro­test­ers say Ms Feeney only agreed to come out of the tun­nel on the night of 15th March 2008, after a deal was struck on with the Nation­al Roads Author­i­ty to halt work at the mon­u­ment for a month.
On 17th March, St. Patrick­’s Day, Lisa Feeney stat­ed that she had a “whale of time” under­ground and was pleased to have won a month-long mora­to­ri­um on work at the site.

Work will not begin at Rath Lugh until April 17th, Lisa Feeney stat­ed, giv­ing M3 oppo­nents enough time to mount fur­ther legal chal­lenges to this con­tentious sec­tion of the road, which they say is too close to impor­tant her­itage sites.
“There is a Supreme Court chal­lenge in three weeks, so that will give us enough time to pre­pare for that”, said Ms. Feeney.

Min­is­ter for the Envi­ron­ment and Green Par­ty mem­ber John Gorm­ley vis­it­ed the Rath Lugh mon­u­ment on March 20th, where he dis­cussed preser­va­tion issues around the site with the Department’s archae­ol­o­gists. Min­is­ter Gorm­ley did not vis­it the M3 site or speak with pro­tes­tors. A spokesman for the Depart­ment said that the Min­is­ter is sat­is­fied that mea­sures being pro­posed by the NRA will pro­tect the nation­al momu­ment at Rath Lugh.

On March 1st, Poet and Nobel lau­re­ate Séa­mus Heaney described the M3 motor­way as a ruth­less des­e­cra­tion of the sacred land­scape around the Hill of Tara.
Dr Jonathan Foyle, British chief exec­u­tive of the World Mon­u­ments Fund, which placed Tara on its endan­gered sites list last year, likened the M3 motor­way near the Hill of Tara to the destruc­tion by Afghanistan’s Tal­iban regime in 2001 of the Bamiyan Bud­dhas.

Scrap the M3 Motor­way, which will increase Car­bon Emis­sions. Sup­port a com­pre­hen­sive rail­way sys­tem for Dublin and Meath!!!

Emer­gency call-out: Protests are ongo­ing on Rath Lugh and Sol­diers Hill near Tara. As many peo­ple as pos­si­ble are need­ed for the protests:
Protest Every Day at Sol­diers Hill — but espe­cial­ly every Fri­day at 3pm

Direc­tions to the Rath Lugh Camp:

By Car: Take the N3 from Dublin. Tara is halfway between Dun­shaugh­lin and Navan. At Ross Cross, there is a pub on the left called “Tara na Ri”, a yel­low build­ing with flat roof. Turn right here towards Skryne and Duleek. Go straight, and take the first right towards Skryne. This is a very windy road, and wood­lands will be on the right hand side. Go straight through the crossoroads. Rath Lugh camp is on the right, on the sharp bend on the road. The entrance is a gap in the woods, usu­al­ly with a few cars parked on the side of the road.

By Bus: Dai­ly bus­es from Busáras, Dublin City Cen­tre. Take the N3 towards Navan. Ask to get off at the Tara Na Ri Pub and fol­low direc­tions above.
For fur­ther infor­ma­tion: 0035386 1537146

Direc­tions for the Tara Camp:

By Car: Take the N3 and then turn left at the Tara sign­post

By Bus: Take either the Navan, Kells or Cavan bus, depart­ing Busáras. Ask to get off after Tara Cross at the Lis­mullen bus stop and it is a short walk from there.

The vig­il camp is locat­ed near the car-park at the Hill of Tara, about 200 metres on the right and a lit­tle in from the road. There are sign posts from the car-park.
For fur­ther infor­ma­tion: 0035386 175 8557

To ring from NI or UK- replace first zero with 00353